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The Sinocism China Newsletter 10.06.15

"Sinocism is the Presidential Daily Brief for China hands"- Evan Osnos, New Yorker Correspondent and National Book Award Winner

China goes back to work Thursday the 8th. The traffic over the National Day Holiday week was insane as usual. This drone videoof a massive jam on a highway heading into Beijing yesterday, set to music, makes one wonder if there is a level of Buddhist Hell that involves National Day Holiday travel.

But if you are stuck in some crazy holiday travel mess, today’s long, catchup newsletter may be just the thing to distract.

Today’s Links:

THE ESSENTIAL EIGHT

1.In South China Sea, a Tougher U.S. Stance | Foreign Policy The move toward a somewhat more muscular stance follows talks between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington last month, which fell far short of a breakthrough over how territorial disputes should be settled in the strategic South China Sea. A final decision has not been made. But the Obama administration is heavily leaning toward using a show of military might after Chinese opposition ended diplomatic efforts to halt land reclamation and the construction of military outposts in the waterway. // US rhetoric seems to be heating up a bit post-summit, will it finally move beyond rhetoric to action, or does Beijing see Obama as what Mao termed a “paper tiger”?

Related:U.S. warns against ‘egregious’ restrictions in contested South China Seas | Reuters Admiral Scott Swift, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, said in a strongly worded address in Australia the United States remained “as committed as ever” to protect freedom of navigation through the region. “It’s my sense that some nations view freedom of the seas as up for grabs, as something that can be taken down and redefined by domestic law or by reinterpreting international law,” Swift told a maritime conference in Sydney. “Some nations continue to impose superfluous warnings and restrictions on freedom of the seas in their exclusive economic zones and claim territorial water rights that are inconsistent with (the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea). This trend is particularly egregious in contested waters.”

Related:US, Philippine marines hold annual amphibious exercises – The Washington Post U.S. Marine Brig. Gen. Paul Kennedy, the U.S. exercise director, said the two countries’ security alliance has been upheld over the years through their close working relationship. Noting the territorial disputes, Kennedy told the opening ceremony of the drills that if anyone challenged the Philippines’ sovereignty, the U.S. “would respond within a matter of hours, and generally, I assure you that that is not a hallow promise.”

Related:Trans-Pacific Partnership: How Washington could kill the trade deal – POLITICO while the trade ministers of a dozen nations celebrate a historic breakthrough Monday after hundreds of hours spent hashing out detailed agreements on intellectual property rights, labor standards and Japanese rice, the dysfunction and unpredictable nature of the U.S. political system could still conceivably unravel the whole delicately negotiated pact. A vote is likely months away — perhaps even longer than that if Obama waits for the final details to be ironed out before he gives Congress the legally mandated 90-days notice that he intends to sign it.

Related:U.S. Allies in Asia Welcome Trans-Pacific Partnership as a Victory – The New York Times In China, where the government’s initial opposition to the trade pact has softened recently, the Ministry of Commerce issued a statement on Tuesday saying that the accord was “one of the important free trade agreements in the Asia-Pacific region.” Early in the negotiations, Beijing criticized the pact as an American effort to contain China, an argument that is still frequently heard from Chinese analysts. “Initial Chinese hostility toward TPP has moderated dramatically,” Mr. Lardy said. // but with China’s mooted SOE reform aimed at strengthening SOEs in key industries isn’t the country moving away from the qualifications needed to join if it wanted to?

Related:Statement by the President on the Trans-Pacific Partnership | whitehouse.gov When more than 95 percent of our potential customers live outside our borders, we can’t let countries like China write the rules of the global economy. We should write those rules, opening new markets to American products while setting high standards for protecting workers and preserving our environment. That’s what the agreement reached today in Atlanta will do

3.Reserving Differences While Finding Common Ground-CHINA US Focus | David Shambaugh In these three regards, the 2015 Obama-Xi Summit must be judged a success. Progress was made, trust was built, and the two great powers on the planet have stabilized their relations. The question is: how long will it last? Previous summits over the past decade have exhibited a same stabilizing pattern—only for mistrust, disagreements, and acrimony to return after a few months’ passage of time. // one of several experts who are saying the summit was a success. I guess I am too negative, still not done detoxing from 10 years in Beijing, should be more willing to believe there can be “trust”

Related:A Summit Just in Times-CHINA US Focus-Minxin Pei It may be too early to tell, but one would not risk ridicule by claiming that the just-concluded U.S.-China summit has accomplished its most important, albeit intangible, objective: temporarily arresting the downward spiral in the ties between Washington and Beijing.

Related:Working on positive China-US relations| China Daily Jeffrey Bader, a top China hand in the United States, heaved a sigh of relief after Chinese President Xi Jinping’s first state visit to the United States last week. Bader had become deeply concerned over the public discourse in the US about China, with some arguing for a more confrontational approach toward a rising China.

Related:Xi’s DC visit hailed as success| China Daily Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he sincerely congratulates President Barack Obama and President Xi for their progress in multiple areas of economic cooperation

4.Chinese President Details Wide-Ranging Carbon Pollution Pledge At White House | ThinkProgress Second, China will adopt a green dispatch system for its grid, where low-carbon electricity gets prioritized over power sourced from fossil fuels. This has been the chokepoint on renewable energy development in China, as the main electricity dispatcher prioritized coal over renewables. There has been a long-running problem of wind power production curtailment in China, where wind turbines sit unused or unconnected to the grid. Though the government has tried to address this in the past, a green dispatch system would fundamentally change how the Chinese grid works. It will reduce the price incentive for coal and ensure that as renewable energy projects are built, they are given first priority to be used.

Related:Analysis on China’s move to “green dispatch” – Into the Wind green dispatch is unfamiliar even to most U.S. energy experts because it does not come up here. It is an important and positive step however for China. What it means is that barriers to running renewable energy facilities are being removed. While the term “green dispatch” may sound like a policy to favor renewable energy, “removing priority dispatch for coal” is a more apt description of the policy change announced today by China.

5.Answering an Appeal by Mao Led Tu Youyou, a Chinese Scientist, to a Nobel Prize – The New York Times North Vietnam, an important ally that was in the middle of war with the United States, had asked for a way to reduce the deaths of its soldiers from malaria, which had become resistant to the drug chloroquine. Malaria was also killing large numbers of people in southern China. Mao Zedong set up a secret military project, Project 523 — named after its starting date, May 23, 1967 — to find a solution. But China’s top expert in the field of malaria research, like legions of other Chinese in this time of high political turmoil, had been labeled a “rightist” and shunted aside

6.China Mulls Plans For a Digital ID Card to Track Internet Users China’s public security ministry is pressing ahead with moves to force more of the country’s 668 million netizens to use their real names and a digital ID card online. The move is part of a raft of tighter Internet controls enshrined in the draft Cybersecurity Law being debated in China’s parliament, the China Youth Daily newspaper said in a recent report. Officials at the ministry are already preparing to implement the measures, although the bill has yet to be passed into law by the National People’s Congress (NPC), the paper quoted cybersecurity official Li Qingqing as saying. // 公安部将明确细化网络实名制

Related:Fear of Losing Control: Why China Is Implementing an Internet Security Law « China Change-Mo Zhixu what has attracted the most attention from regular Internet users is the real name registration system, which ensures that all information posted to the Internet can be traced to its origin (Article 20). With all this—granting state agencies extraordinary powers, forcing website operators to take total responsibility and dutifully follow the law, and funneling Internet users into a monitored real-name system—a cyberspace is created in which strict control is exercised, and from which there is no escape. That the “Internet Security Law” would be such should come as no surprise. For the last several years, Beijing has upped its control of the Internet

Related:Brand New WeChat Feature: Heat Maps in Real Time Foot traffic heat maps is an excellent example of the services that are now becoming possible due to WeChat’s universal adoption across China. In the next year China Channel expects the WeChat City Services package to expand out across all major cities in China and increasingly become an integrated part of people’s daily lives. Foot traffic heat maps is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what’s possible with combining public services and data into the WeChat eco-system. // so much big data for the government and its captive Internet national champions to sift through

Related:China’s Internet sovereignty – China Media Project In order to better understand how the Chinese Communist Party understands “Internet sovereignty” — or “cyber-sovereignty” — we can take a look at how its own strategists have discussed the notion. Back in July, Ye Zheng (叶征), a member of the Strategic Advisory Committee of the People’s Liberation Army, published an article called, “Thoughts on Internet Sovereignty,” addressing three key points: 1. Internet sovereignty directly impacts national security and stability. 2. Internet sovereignty can easily be neglected and infringed upon. 3. China needs to constantly raise awareness about the protection of Internet sovereignty.

7.Beijing ‘100 Percent Covered’ by Web of Surveillance Cameras-RFA The city’s police department said in a statement that “every corner” of the capital is now covered by the municipal surveillance system, the official Xinhua news agency reported. “The complete coverage by the video system during the holiday is part of a move to tighten the capital’s security and avoid crimes in crowds,” it said. The upgrade, which has seen a 29 percent rise in the number of cameras on Beijing’s streets, is part of a nationwide “skynet” policy requiring cities across China to achieve full video surveillance coverage.

BUSINESS, ECONOMY AND TRADE

IMF sees China slowdown risks, urges Beijing to float yuan | Reuters “The recent change in China’s exchange rate system provides the basis for a more market-determined exchange rate, but much depends on implementation,” the IMF said. “A floating exchange rate will enhance monetary policy autonomy and help the economy adjust to external shocks, as China continues to become more integrated into both the global economy and global financial markets.”

Beijing retail sales rise during holiday week – Xinhua In the first six days of October, Beijing’s 100 leading retailers reported a total sales revenue of 5.3 billion yuan (about 833.69 million U.S. dollars), up 6.2 percent from the same period of last year, according to figures released by Beijing municipal commission of commerce.

国庆不平静，人民币惊天大屠杀This post claims China engineered a “massacre” of RMB shorts in the Hong Kong offshore market after the August devaluation. Did it?

Li Ka-shing’s Indignation | Chublic Opinion He strikes back at the article as “chilling” and representing a “cultural revolution mindset.” Yet while he defends his business decisions as based on a sound and commonsensical logic detached from political considerations, he also made a gesture that shows his acute sense of his place: “We should not let this meaningless fight over words to become the focus and a distraction from the important message that President Xi tries to send through his state visit to the United States.” // Li’s response kind of reads like he was politely and obliquely declaring that he is “severing relations 断交” with Beijing

Charlotte scientist pleads guilty to corporate espionage | The Charlotte Observer Federal prosecutors say the 55-year-old chemical engineer stole proprietary technology and hundreds of pages of documents over the last decade from his government and civilian employers, including a company in Charlotte. Huang’s goal, according to court documents, was to aid both the Chinese government and his own company, which he started in North Carolina to do business in his Asian homeland.

Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman Doesn’t See China `Hard Landing’ – Bloomberg Business “The consumer demand — the middle class, for certain types of things — is doing pretty well,” Schwarzman, chief executive officer of New York-based Blackstone, said in a television interview Monday…”There’s been this almost panic vis-a-vis China, whether it was ‘hard landing,’ whether it was recession. I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

Bristol-Myers Squibb fined $14M on charges of bribing Chinese hospitals-USA Today Pharmaceutical manufacturer Bristol-Myers Squibb has agreed to pay more than $14 million in fines to settle charges that its joint venture in China paid cash and other benefits to state-owned hospitals in exchange for prescription sales, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced Monday. // and no one goes to jail, cost of doing business, BS punishment by SEC

China’s Ambitious Rail Projects Crash Into Harsh Realities in Latin America – The New York Times across the region, one large Chinese rail venture after another has come crashing against the hard realities of Latin American politics, resistance from environmental groups, and a growing wariness toward China. While China boasts of its rail initiatives around the world, it has often been stymied here in Latin America, reflecting how even China’s formidable ambitions have limits.

POLITICS AND LAW

Property Tycoon Angers Ideologues by Saying China’s Communism Has a Long Way to Go · Global Voices Ren Zhiqiang, who has more than 33 million followers on Twitter-like Weibo, is nicknamed “the cannon” for his outspokenness. The phrase he took issue with was “we are successors of communism,” which appeared as a hashtag in a statement from the Central Communist Youth League, a party organization with 75 million members and a coordinating body of the “civilization” campaign to spread online messages that put China in a positive light

A New Regime, Not a New Country « China Change Dissent keeps rolling in, not only from “dissidents.” Over the week-long National Day holidays in China, Ren Zhiqiang (任志強), a high-profile real estate mogul who has earned the nickname “the Cannon” online for his provocative opinions, took aim at the notion of the “New China.”

Asia Unbound » China’s Think-Tank Great Leap Forward To compound the sustained think tank dependence on the state, since the second half of 2013 the environment in which think tanks operate in China has been changing in a way that is detrimental to critical and independent thinking. Marxism-Leninism has again been upheld as the orthodox ideology in major think tanks such as Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The same is happening in Chinese universities, where political correctness is becoming a primary concern in academic research.

The ‘Gatekeeper’ in Xi Jinping’s Inner Circle – The New York Times Ding Xuexiang, 53, has emerged as the latest notable entrant into Mr. Xi’s inner circle, which has a reputation for being secretive and purposefully distant toward Westerners. Mr. Ding serves as a secretary to Mr. Xi, after a career as a Communist Party cadre in Shanghai, where Mr. Xi spent eight months as party chief in 2007 after a political purge there. Mr. Ding moved to Beijing in 2013 after being appointed deputy director of the General Office of the party’s Central Committee.

People’s Daily urges faith, fortitude for national cause – Xinhua Chinese must have strong faith, show fortitude and maintain preseverance in carrying out reform and achieving development, according to an editorial to be published in Thursday’s edition of state mouthpiece the People’s Daily. With China going through major reform and the economy plateauing, the country is “climbing up the toughest part of a steep hill before reaching the summit,” said the editorial marking the 66th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.// 人民日报社论：向着我们既定的目标继续前进——热烈庆祝中华人民共和国成立六十六周年

China’s Desperate Battle Against Separatist Terrorism – WSJ If the Thai allegation proves to be true, the blast would mark a rare spillover of violence related to Uighurs outside China. This attack would add a new dimension to the serious issue of terrorism in China, with significant security implications not only for China but also for Turkey, Thailand and other transit countries in connection with the movement of Uighurs.

FOREIGN AND DEFENSE AFFAIRS

Top U.S. spy skeptical about U.S.-China cyber agreement | Reuters Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that the agreement did not include specific penalties for violations but that the U.S. government could use economic sanctions and other tools to respond if needed. Clapper and other officials said they viewed last week’s cyber agreement between China and the United States on curbing economic cyber espionage as a “good first step” but noted it was not clear how effective the pact would be.

U.S. and China Talk Civil Space Cooperation – All Things Nuclear since 2011, the natural U.S. interlocutors on civil space issues, NASA and the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), have been banned by Congress from using federal money “to develop, design, plan, promulgate, implement or execute a bilateral policy, program, order, or contract of any kind to participate, collaborate, or coordinate bilaterally in any way with China or any Chinese-owned company.”

U.S. Presidential Candidates on China | ChinaFile This tracker, maintained by ChinaFile’s staff and interns, keeps you up to date on what the current candidates are saying about China, and where and when they say it. We’ll be updating the site with new and expanded tools for understanding China’s role in the U.S. election in the coming months.

Chinese Rocket Launches Point to Robust, Expanding Capabilities | The Jamestown Foundation While much of the media attention in September focused on the intercontinental and intermediate range missiles on display during the September 9 parade, the almost mundane regularity of space launches from Chinese satellite launch centers such as Taiyuan, Jiuquan and Xichang, herald China’s rapid expansion as a space power. The ability to launch a wide variety of satellites and spacecraft is important to China’s continued economic growth and national defense.

CIA publishes documents on US plans to sell arms to China and American spying efforts | Hong Kong Free Press As an illustration of the shift in US perceptions of China as a potential enemy to a potential ally, recently released documents by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) show that the US had been spying on China’s atomic weapons programme in the 1960s, but in the 1980s, the US government had contemplated selling weapons to China. On September 16, the CIA released roughly 2,500 formerly classified documents for public consumption on its website at foia.cia.gov. A significant number of these documents touch on China.

Nicaragua canal project fraught with risks -environmental consultantcy | Reuters The social and environmental impact study by the consultancy, Environmental Resources Management Ltd, echoed many of the same concerns. It urged Nicaragua’s government to verify project builder and operator, Hong Kong-based HK Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Co Ltd (HKND Group), complied with international standards before construction begins. The study was commissioned by HKND. The company is controlled by Chinese telecom mogul Wang Jing, who has dodged questions about his financial backers and much of his business background.

China’s Xi Jinping Changes the Odds in Macau – WSJ As Mr. Xi continues to clean house, he has made clear to the casino moguls that if they want a future in Macau they’ll have to focus more on families and entertainment. The golden rule of gambling—“the house always wins”—no longer applies. In China, the president does. // the Party always wins

Top United Nations Official Is Accused in Bribery Scheme – The New York Times The former president of the United Nations General Assembly, John W. Ashe, was one of six people named in a criminal complaint outlining a bribery scheme that involved more than $1 million in payments from sources in China for assistance in real estate deals and other business interests. The charges represent a widening of the probe into Ng Lap Seng

Chinese President snubs Mark Zuckerberg’s unborn child | Page Six Xi’s terse reply: “No.” While a spokesperson for Zuckerberg told us, “This was not correct,” a second source insisted that Xi did decline to nominate a name for the Facebook founder’s unborn baby girl and politely added that it would be “too much responsibility.”

‘Shanghai’ Delay: Harvey Weinstein Blames Chinese Government – Hollywood Reporter “We had been approved by China, and we were getting ready to shoot, and one day I’m there and the [government’s] film people come by and they say, ‘Ken Watanabe’s character shows sympathy to a Chinese person, played by Gong Li, in the film,” Weinstein tells The Hollywood Reporter. “We said, ‘Yeah, you read the script a long time ago, and we got clearance.’” Weinstein says China’s state film regulators ordered him to recast the part to be played by the Japanese actor with an American actor in order to begin production.

兰博基尼工体北门连撞8车 司机弃车离开现场国内新京报网 another fuerdai or guanerdai behaving badly…21 year old drives his license plate-free lamborghini into 9 cars around Beijing’s worker’s stadium, then tries to fell

How to design for a city of 22 million people – CNN It arose from a directive to bolster design and innovation as China, and local authorities, seeing the economic writing on the wall, jumped on the global creative industries bandwagon. But is a top-down mandate—inevitably focused, in that top-down way, on official forums, forging diplomatic ties and, at Beijing Design Week, the pageantry of a flamboyant opening ceremony that has featured 3D projections, sky trackers and pop-music performances—enough to foster design in a meaningful way?

‘China’s Mona Lisa’ Draws Heightened Fervor for Culture – The New York Times Unlike most visitors, this small army had come with only one goal: to see “Along the River During the Qingming Festival,” an early 12th-century painted scroll considered so iconic that it is often called “China’s Mona Lisa.” Since an exhibition celebrating the 90th anniversary of the Palace Museum opened in early September, people have been waiting for up to 10 hours to see this 17-foot-long masterpiece attributed to the painter Zhang Zeduan, an intricate ink-on-silk tableau of life in the Northern Song dynasty capital, Kaifeng.

ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE AND HEALTH

Coal, Which Built a Chinese City, Now Threatens to Bury It – The New York Times Decades of destructive mining techniques are causing frequent landslides that threaten to sink the city. As miners scrape out the last layers of minable coal, buildings near the mine have been abandoned and the city’s underground water pipes are cracking. Today, Fushun produces fewer than three million tons of coal a year, a drop from a peak of 18.3 million tons in 1962. All five main coal mines here could close by 2030, Mr. Cui said.

20城被环保部约谈 含5省会|城市|省会_凤凰资讯 Ministry of Environmental Protection has called in 20 cities for chats about their pollution problems

More Working Women in China Freeze Their Eggs – WSJ Focus on the topic began to mount recently after a local magazine profiled the now 41-year-old actress Xu Jinglei, who revealed that several years ago she went to the U.S. to freeze her eggs. Other Chinese actresses, such as Michelle Ye, 35, also announced they have set up fertility savings accounts abroad.

Mystery: PLOS One seeks investigation after publishing two papers with “substantial overlap” – Retraction Watch The first paper, about microRNAs in colon cancer, was published in December, 2014 by authors based at the General Hospital of People’s Liberation Army in China. It has not been cited, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. The second paper, about microRNAs in prostate cancer, was published in April 2015 by authors based at institutions in Shanghai. It’s been cited once. Despite the mystery surrounding these papers, some things are clear — the text definitely overlap

China Fights Desert’s Spread and Puts Mongols’ Way of Life at Risk – Bloomberg Business Years of intensive agriculture, the ravages of open-pit coal mining, and climate change have depleted the scarce water resources of the already arid territory. Its grasslands are disappearing and lakes are drying up. China’s response includes the “Great Green Wall”—planting vast numbers of trees to form a protective belt between cities and deserts—and a policy of moving Mongolian herders and their livestock off the land. It may not be working, say academics and activists. Meanwhile, tensions are growing as ethnic Mongols protest the resettlement and growing environmental problems.

Research & Publications | Paulson Institute In support of the Chinese government’s efforts to address air quality and economic growth together, these papers explore how market forces within China can efficiently allocate energy resources to reduce carbon emissions and explore policy options. The topics are focused on power sector reform, electric power demand response, building energy efficiency, and carbon emissions trading, and were co-authored with experts from the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP), Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and World Bank.

FOOD AND TRAVEL

Glass walkway suspended 3,540 feet above ground cracks under tourists’ feet The walkway is suspended at a height of about 1,080 meters, or 3,543 feet. “A lot of people started to scream,” Hai wrote. “I screamed out, ‘It cracked! It really cracked!’ and then I pushed the people in front of me so that we could run out of the way.” A spokesperson for the Yuntai Mountain tourism bureau told People’s Daily Online that the cracks occurred after a tourist dropped a stainless steel mug on the walkway.

BEIJING

China’s Supercity Policy Keeps Ex-Provincial Capital Waiting for Revival – The New York Times Called Jing-Jin-Ji after its three key centers — “Jing” is for Beijing, “Jin” is for the port city of Tianjin, and “Ji” is the traditional name for Hebei Province — it aims to move away from the kind of dirty industries common in Hebei and toward the information industries found in Beijing. “This is a chance for Baoding to recapture some of its former importance,” said Sun Jinzhu, the city’s official historian. “This is a historic opportunity for us and for the rest of Hebei.”